Aquarium of the Pacific President & CEO Dr. Jerry Schubel and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia look at the rendering for the new watershed exhibit coming to the aquarium by spring 2017. As California enters its fifth year of drought, the exhibit will offer information to guests on dealing with the ongoing water crisis. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG)

Orion, a male American Kestrel, approximately 11 years old, greeted guests as an example of a watershed animal during the announcement of the new watershed exhibit coming to the Aquarium of the Pacific by spring 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG)

An Aquarium of the Pacific exhibit that has previously called attention to pollution-related problems will be redesigned to call attention to the scarcity of water in Southern California.

The revamped exhibit may serve as an educational tool for school children and other aquarium visitors who live in a region affected by prolonged drought, Aquarium of the Pacific President Jerry Schubel said.

“It’s not a drought that’s going to go away anytime fast. It really is a harbinger of the future we have to live in,” he said.

Plans revolve around an existing exhibit featuring a relief map showing terrain between San Pedro Bay and the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. In its current form, visitors can turn on a water spray that simulates rainfall and the course of urban runoff toward the ocean. (There’s a reason public health experts caution against swimming in the ocean after a storm.)

Local conditions

In Long Beach, the city’s Board of Water Commissioners acted in June to ease constraints on residents’ abilities to water their lawns during the summertime, Water Department spokeswoman Kaylee Weatherly said in email. That move cleared the way for Long Beachers to water their lawns on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until the end of this month.

Come October, Long Beach residents will no longer be able to water their lawns on Thursdays. Outdoor watering restrictions are set to automatically increase next month since local officials are essentially counting on cooler weather and rainfall making it possible for The residents to keep their lawns alive without turning on their sprinklers.

The fall and winter outdoor watering restrictions are scheduled to remain in effect until the beginning of April or a decision to ease local restrictions.

Additional water conservation mandates affecting Long Beach residents include a prohibition on landscape irrigation between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., limiting the time a sprinkler can be turned on in a given place to 10 minutes (20 minutes if one uses efficient, rotating nozzles) and a ban on using hoses to wash the likes of patios, driveways and sidewalks unless a qualifying pressure washing device is employed.

Restrictions are much more stringent in Avalon, on Catalina Island. Southern California Edison is in charge of providing water to Avalon residents and business owners and earlier this month, the utility declared Avalon customers must reduce water consumption to amounts 40 or 50 percent below baseline levels.

Exhibit plans

Tom Bowman of Signal Hill environmental consultancy Bowman Change said the aquarium hired him to redesign the new exhibit, and that its focus will change from highlighting pollution risks to raising awareness to the fact that Southern California dwellers rely on water supplies from the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado River.

Schubel and Bowman said plans for the new exhibit include a display showing real-time drought data and water saving advice.

Bowman said he wants future visitors to understand that rain doesn’t necessarily fall in the places where Californians actually live and to gain a better understand of such water conservation measures as recycling water or using nonpotable supplies, known as gray water, for landscaping.

Andrew Edwards covers business and higher education for the Long Beach Press-Telegram. He has previously covered City Hall in Long Beach. He has spent his entire career in Southern California, having worked at publications including the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, The Sun and Daily Pilot before coming to Long Beach. He graduated from UCLA in 2003 after studying political science and history.

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